Friends Build DIY Tiny House Community in Portland

onMay 8, 2015

Birds of a feather… these four tiny house dwellers decided to “flock” together in a small community comprised of cute tiny homes!

Tony Diethelm created the Simply Home Community in Portland, Oregon. All four tiny homeowners knew each other beforehand, and Lina, who owns the Lucky Penny house in the community, helped Tony design his own tiny home.

Friends Build DIY Tiny House Community in Portland

The property where the four houses sit was not originally for sale. Tony found a homeowner willing to sell their home and property by riding around on his bike sticking notes on doors of the homes in the neighborhood.

Tony did most of the legwork in establishing the community; getting utilities hooked up and making sure everything was code-compliant. The group of homeowners spent many months creating community association rules and agreements, mutually deciding things like, how many pets were allowed, who does what chores when, trying to address all the issues that could possibly cause problems down the road.

All four tiny homeowners share a garden and “community space”, which means they also all pitch in to maintain it. Their eventual plan for a current gazebo, which was there before the tiny homes were built, is to replace it with a hot tub.

Wonderful! The original house must be expensive to maintain though…will be interesting to see what they decide to do with it…
Can’t wait to see how they progress in the community! I hope we get continuous updates….:)

In discussing community rules, he said they discussed who did the dishes. Huh? How does THAT work? I would assume that each person does his own dishes in his own tiny house. Not understanding how a tiny house community works I guess. All I know is I’d NOT like to be part of a community a though it were a commune. I value my freedom too much.

So, is it legal? What are they calling each house -are they bedroom units or do they have full kitchens? In Hawaii, only 5 unrelated people can live on one lot, is it the same in Portland? It would be nice of the planning departments would do specified zoning for communal living villages, otherwise there seems to be a perpetual threat of legal hassles.

I would love to do this sort of thing.
They never said how the land is owned- do they all own it and pay part of the mortgage? Or, is there one owner and they pay him rent?
For me, tiny house living is about saving money, so I wouldn’t want to own the land and have a mortgage- I would hope to pay rent.
(Also, if I ever did this, I would hope they wouldn’t put me in charge of gardening. I’m just letting you all know now- if I were the gardener, you’d starve. Fair warning.)

This is so fantastic and looks like an ideal for a community. I have the same questions I think many previous posters do though as to how it’s set up for the tiny house owners. Part of the allure of tiny house living for me is to get out from under the weight of a mortgage and the larger cost of living assoc. with owning a large dwelling. Does one person in this scenario still maintain ownership of the larger dwelling and the others pay rent to that property owner, or do they all have ownership of the property. I know that’s a highly “nosey” question but does speak to the style of TH living in terms of having that larger dwelling as part of the property, I think. Still has to be maintained/owned by someone or all. I know lots of community plans do account for a larger community center with showers, large kitchen, guest accommodation, recreation, meeting center though… so this isn’t out of the norm. Theirs is just a smaller version with a house as the “center.” Very cool!!

hi pamela!
i am so enthralled with the tiny house movement! but in my neck of the woods the municipalities seem dead set against them. have you come up against this and are there any ways around it? besides jumping thru the hoops of creating an rv park?
carla

The content and information here is for entertainment and should not be taken as professional advice. While we strive to provide accurate and helpful information, we are not professionals. The owner of this website disclaims all warranties expressed or implied regarding the accuracy, timeliness, and completeness of the information provided.

Tiny House Talk lets you list tiny homes for sale or rent as a free service but Tiny House Media, LLC, TinyHouseTalk.com, and its contributors do not validate/verify the information we receive for these listings so it is your responsibility to verify the information we provide for you. Please do your due diligence and deal with people in person. Thank you.

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.